Proud Bull Rising Part 8

Finishing up February with an installment of my Alternative Fiction. Hope you enjoy!

2831

A distrubing trend in rising criminal activity and corruption taking advantage of the new economic growth was beginning to be noticed. Protector Arantino worked with the Privy Council to increase funding for the Concordat Constabulary. This allows them to hire new recruits, replace aging equipment and improve their overall capabilities. Over the next several years the results are seen as crime levels begin to drop to their previous levels. In addition to this, the Taurian École Militaire is expanded to provide more recruits as the Taurian Defense Force continues to improve its readiness levels.

After a fair amount of debate, San Carlos is selected as the location to build a new industrial mech factory. Similar to the plant on Sterope, there will be lines for the Crosscut and DigKing industrial mechs. Expansion of the plant will continue until there are at least three production lines of each. In addition to supplying the new colony worlds, some of the production is slated for export. The militia engineering battalions and survey teams, having completed their work on pre-existing Concordat worlds, move on to the new colonies and the reclaimed worlds to continue their work.

The Taurian agents at the Rashpur-Owens Incorporated shipyard finally enact their plan having now worked their way into lower management positions and covertly gathering the access they will need from their supervisors at the shipyard. Over the course of a week, the agents are able to copy schematics of the shipyard itself, the construction plans for the Invader and Merchant classes of jumpships, and the specifications for the Kearny-Fuchida Drives for both types of ships. Using the destruction of a shuttle between the shipyard and the planet, they fake their deaths while also eliminating several others at the same time who would have been close enough to them to assist any investigation. As an added layer of protection, if any investigation does manage to look their direction, falsified evidence leading to the Lyran Commonwealth has been planted to steer them in the wrong directions.

2832

The Concordant begins to see a large number of refugees arriving as they flee the battles of the Second Succession War. The refugees are used to bolster the populations of several of the new colony worlds and even help start some new colonies growing the number of colony worlds to 11 now. Heliat and Guldra are brought into the Taurian Concordat while Eliat, Gant, Cadiz, and Franmalin are the four newly colonized worlds. While many of the new colonists arrive with little more than the clothing on their backs, they are able to work them into the growing colonies with minimal effort.

While exploring the Heliat system to update the system star charts as part of bringing the system into the Concordat, a derelict Lola III-class destroyer is discovered in orbit around the moon of the outermost gas giant in the system. Salvage teams are quickly dispatched to examine the vessel which is discovered to be the SLNS Noshiro. While it is too far damaged to be repaired, they're able to salvage much of the armor plating, four of the NL55 Naval Lasers, five of the NAC/10 Naval Autocannons along with samples of their ammunition, some of the ships sensors, and a fair amount of the interior bulkheads and other components. When the operation is completed in 2834, the remnents of the vessel is pushed to where the Heliat VI gas giant's gravitational pull grabs hold of it and pulls it down to its final demise thus erasing all trace of the recovery operation.

The Ministry of Trade and Colonization sends several representatives to the Outback Region of Davion space and the Sian Commonality of Liao space to help ensure the best and brightest of the refugees are recruited and assisted in passage to the Concordant colony worlds. They also try to identify worthwhile recruits in the various military refugees from various broken and destroyed units for potential recruits to build new militia units on the new colony worlds. While they are doing this, they also resume the practice of recruiting dissatisfied Federated Suns and Capellan citizens to recruit for the colony worlds as well.

In the Brisbane System VMI begins building a shipyard with slips to repair and refurbish civilan dropships. The facility is constructed near the asteroid belt with a pair of habitat stations, three orbital factories, and several deep space mining stations to provide the materials needed. The facility is planned to be completed by the end of 2837. Several merchant companies approach VMI about contracting regular repair work for their dropships even before the facility is finished.

The next post should be the last lance of tanks for the Lazy Eights as well as more Eridani Light Horse. The ELH part though will be repairs and not new models as I had a shelf flip over while I was doing some reorganizing and cleaning which lead to about 10 damaged mechs and about three times that in damaged vehicles. A fairly large precentage will be just rebasing models which is not too bad but there will be some more major repairs to do as well. See you all next time!